Surprise Us, Mr. Trump: Name an Ethics Watchdog With Teeth - By the NYT Editorial Board
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD JULY 7, 2017
Walter Shaub Jr. announced his resignation as director of the Office of Government Ethics on Thursday, plunging the federal governments top ethics watchdog agency into limbo. President Trump now has the chance to appoint an accommodating loyalist whod give him far less trouble than Mr. Shaub has. Or he could surprise us, and name another independent director committed to the ethical rules of public service. The presidents past behavior doesnt offer much hope, but it would be in his long-term interest to choose a director with integrity.
The 70-person O.G.E. works with some 4,500 executive branch ethics officials whose goal is preventing conflicts of interest among 2.5 million civilian federal employees. The energy, commitment and character of the person at the top is crucial to the offices success, not least because it has no real enforcement power. Its influence derives from a mix of financial disclosure rules, public pressure and, ideally, White House support for its mission of ensuring that civil servants act on the behalf of Americans, not themselves.
The office has had no such backing in its grinding battles with the Trump administration, whose appointees, some of the wealthiest nominees in history, resisted demands that they sell off businesses and assets that presented potential conflicts of interest. After a long confrontation, Mr. Shaub won one battle, forcing the administration to disclose the names of officials in Mr. Trumps inner circle who had been granted waivers from the White Houses pledge to avoid conflicts of interest. It was a hollow victory, since all those officials were allowed to go about their business as usual.
Mr. Shaub, who tangled as well with nominees in the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations, is a person of great determination and deep legal knowledge, and its unfortunate that he is leaving before his term expires in early January, instead of fighting to the end. He says his new job, for the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center, offers him greater freedom to press for tighter ethics laws.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/07/opinion/office-of-government-ethics-walter-shaub.html